A Brief History of Controversial Beers

Like Snowden’s national security leaks, Cruise’s Scientology spiels, or Miley’s depraved twerks, beer can be a polarizing phenomenon. With a profusion of new suds flooding the market every single day, breweries often look for ways to set themselves apart from the flock, so it’s inevitable that someone will be offended somewhere.

More often than not, a beer is controversial not because of what’s inside the bottle or can, but rather what’s on the label. Some breweries shamelessly rely on a certain amount of shock value—either the label artwork or beer name—to get their products noticed (I’m looking at you, Ass Clown Brewing…). Other times, it’s a beer’s ridiculously high alcohol content that will get it more attention than it deserves—can a 40%-ABV beverage even be considered beer?—or an unexpected additive, like caffeine or steroids.

From a brewery that’s routinely charged with misogyny to a hoppy ale that brought the feds to Brooklyn, here are 10 controversial beers that are sure to offend you or someone you know.

Moonshot '69

Before Four Loko, there was Moonshot ‘69. The caffeinated beer was an invention of Boston Brewing Company co-founder and former executive Rhonda Kallman, who in 2006 came up with the formula for a 5%-ABV light beer that contained 69 milligrams of caffeine per bottle. The beer’s initial run sold poorly, but after battling breast cancer in 2009 Kallman reintroduced Moonshot to the market. The following year, in a ruling that also targeted Four Loko, the F.D.A called for the removal of caffeine from all alcoholic beverages. Kallman’s company eventually folded in the wake of the ruling, which she told the New York Times was “Prohibition in 2010.”

BrewDog The End of History

Starting in 2009, extreme Scottish duo BrewDog made a name for themselves by brewing successively higher and higher alcohol beers, beginning with the 32%-ABV “Tactical Nuclear Penguin” and culminating in 2010 with the “The End of History.” The latter’s ridiculous strength (55% ABV) and exorbitant price tag ($1,000 per bottle) were themselves enough to create a mild controversy. But the bad boys doubled down on the ridiculousness and packaged the beer in bottles in real taxidermied squirrels. Thankfully, “The End of History” signaled an end to their madcap pursuit of super-alcoholic beers. Citing the work of American philosopher Francis Fukuyama, they announced, “[This] beer is the last high ABV beer we are going to brew, the end point of our research into how far we can push the boundaries of extreme brewing, the end of beer.”

BrewDog Royal Virility Performance

The experiments with high-alcohol beer complete, BrewDog still didn't stop rabble-rousing. In addition to brewing the incrediblylow-ABV Nanny State (1.1%) as a middle finger to those who had protested their experiments in extreme brewing, they also caused a stir in the British papers with Royal Virility Performance, brewed to to mark the April 29, 2011, wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton. The modest 7.5% abv IPA was rendered immodest by an infusion natural aphrodisiacs, like chocolate, horny goat weed, herbal “viagara,” and “a healthy dose of sarcasm,” as well as a label that proclaimed, “Arise Prince Willy!”

Lagunitas Censored and Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale

When the BATF rejected Lagunitas’ label for a beer it called The Kronik (the agency claimed the word referenced some sort of illicit drug), the company simply slapped a “Censored” sticker on it—as a joke—and re-submitted the paperwork with the modified artwork. To their amazement, the BATF accepted it and Lagunitas “Censored” was born. But that wasn’t the brewery’s only run-in with the authorities.
On St. Patrick’s Day 2005, after an eight-week undercover investigation by the California Alcohol Beverage Control Board, which repeatedly sent two agents to the brewery to try to buy weed (“People kept trying to give it to them, but no one would sell it!” founder Tony Magee told a local paper afterward), three people were arrested at the brewery’s regular Thursday tastings, two for possession of marijuana and one for possession for sale. The brewery was fined for operating a “Disorderly House” and lost its license to sell beer on premises for 20 days. Not ones to wallow in misery, Lagunitas brewed a new, 10%-ABV seasonal ale to commemorate the bust and called it “Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale.” Printed on the label in very fine type is an account of the bust that reads, in part, “We brewed this especially bitter ale in remembrance of the 2005 St. Patrick’s Day Massacre and in celebration of our 20 day suspension back in January of this year. Whatever. We’re Still Here.”

Blue Moon

Drinking Blue Moon is like the beer nerd’s equivalent to Patton Oswalt’s parable about listening to Phil Collins: At first you feel pretty damn cool doing it, but as the years wear on it’s embarrassing to discover just how off the mark you once were. Yes, Blue Moon is the gateway craft beer to a bigger and badder world of Allagash, Three Floyds, and Lost Abbey—but is it even fair to call this a “craft beer” considering its parent company is MillerCoors and its availability at every Applebee’s in the U.S.?
While some beer nerds see it as a harmless mass-produced beer that “we” can drink, others consider it faux-craft pandering for a mainstream market—and, worse still, evidence of Big Beer's attempt to squash the upstart craft beer movement. This hazy divide makes Blue Moon a particularly controversial beer at the annual Great American Beer Festival, where its judged blindly against other craft beers and routinely takes home gold medals in numerous categories. Last year, the Brewers Association spoke out about what it calls "crafty" beers, accusing the likes of Blue Moon and ShockTop of misleading consumers by tricking them into thinking they are small, artisanal brands.

Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic

Revered are the great lambic brewers of the world. Jean van Roy of Cantillon, Armand De Belder of Drie Fonteinen, and…. Jim Koch of Sam Adams?! Maybe “revered” isn’t the right word for Koch, but for more than 20 years his Sam Adams brand has been making its own take on a Belgian-style fruit beer, Cranberry Lambic. Unlike the aforementioned lambic brewers and blenders of Brussels and Beersel, whose family breweries go back generations and whose traditional production methods go back centuries, Koch formulated this fruit beer in a thoroughly modern style and then, somewhat whimsically it seems, slapped on the “lambic” label. The main sticking-point here, for beer traditionalist anyway, is the fact that Cranberry Lambic isn’t fermented in the lambic style. That is, there’s no spontaneous or wild yeast fermentation going on, which is at the very heart of what makes a lambic a lambic. And while Sam Adams certainly isn’t the only brewery guilty of taking liberties with traditional names, it’s arguably the most high profile—and, in these case, one of the egregious in its cavalier attitude toward style definitions.

Clown Shoes Tramp Stamp

In the high-fiving, dude-bro world of craft beer, it’s easy for breweries (and their customers) to get carried away with tacky names, tasteless label art, and other barbarian-like antics. Take for instance “Tramp Stamp,” a Belgian-style IPA from the already ridiculously named Clown Shoes Beer in Ipswich, MA. A few years ago, the beer’s provocative name and label caused a stir when Beer Advocate's Candice Alström posted a scathing message on one of the site's message boards calling Clown Shoes’ labels sexist and borderline racist (other names cited included "Brown Angel" and "Lubrication"), adding that if their beer was any good they wouldn’t have to rely on such gimmicks to sell it. (The thread has since been removed, but blew up in the beer world and got everyone talking.)
Clown Shoes responded with a mocking apology, stating that it would change the name of the beer to “Lower Back Tattoo” to avoid any conflicts with the “NAWWRGTS (National Association of Women Who Regret Getting Tramp Stamps).” Today, “Tramp Stamp” is still in production under its original name and has an 87 (“very good”) rating on Beeradvocate.

Sixpoint Hop Obama

Shortly before taking office in January 2009, President Obama was honored by Sixpoint Brewery in Brooklyn with his own beer, a hoppy 5.2%-ABV Scottish red ale called “Hop Obama.” But a few months later, the brewery found itself the subject of a raid by the Feds, who put the kibosh on Sixpoint’s Obama tribute. In a Facebook post around that time, the brewery claimed the Department of Homeland Security sent a cease and desist letter stating that they must take immediate action to shut down and “exterminate” production, dissemination, and distribution of the Hop Obama brand or face a “seizure of the brewery.” The brewery relented and gave up the Obama reference, citing a law that prohibits them from naming consumer products for celebrities “who haven’t actually endorsed them.”

Short’s Brewing Co. ControversiALE (AKA Hangin’ Frank)

Short’s Brewing Co. in Bellaire, MI wanted to pay tribute to a former Northern Michigan bar owner, Frank Fochtman, who in the early 1900s happened to have hanged himself from the rafters in the basement of City Park Grill. (Frank’s ghost—affectionately known as Hangin’ Frank—is said to haunt the space to this day.) But the beer’s label, a drawing of hanging man with a suspiciously dark-colored hand, drew outrage from some who thought it referenced an old-fashioned lynching.
The brewery modified the artwork to show the hand as being clearly Caucasian (as Frank was) and tried to repackage the beer with an accompanying sheet detailing the story of Hangin’ Frank. It was too late. Many found the idea of naming a beer after a suicide victim distasteful as well. Short’s eventually changed the name to “ControversiALE” and issued a statement saying, “We are not a brewery that relies on gimmicks or shock value for our packaging; we have stories behind everything.”

Coors Light 24-Ounce Commemorative Puerto Rican Day Parade Cans

You know what they say about the path to hell… MillerCoors thought they were paying tribute to New York City’s Puerto Rican community by releasing a “commemorative” 24-ounce Coors Light can to mark the city’s 2013 Puerto Rican Day Parade. But the special can—emblazoned with a Puerto Rican flag inside an apple—incensed many in the NYC Puerto Rican community, who lambasted the company and the parade’s organizers for co-opting their heritage and using alcohol as a symbol to define Puerto Ricans. It seems the can was particularly offensive for 2013, given this year’s parade motto: “Salude: Celebrate Your Health.”

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